Category: Blog

Updates from Mahalla: James arrested!

Posted on By 3arabawy

US photojournalist and friend James Buck has been arrested two minutes ago in Mahalla, where families of detainees are staging a hunger strike demanding the release of their loved ones from the custody of Mubarak’s pigs…

6:25PM: James is in Mahalla’s 1st Police Station, where many young men and children had been detained and abused since Sunday by Mubarak’s pigs…

6:40PM: Muhammad el-Attar, one of the factory organizers who sabotaged the 6th of April strike, and Mubarak’s Labor Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi exchange praise on TV. Attar also accused “communist groups operating in the Ghazl el-Mahalla factories” of creating troubles… Disgusting!

6:53PM: James’ mobile phone is dead. We need lawyers to go there as soon as possible, coz I don’t expect the US embassy in Cairo is gonna do anything for him… They are too busy sleeping with Mubarak and the NDP “moderates” in the same cozy bed…

7:55PM: I managed to get thru to James. He’s still detained inside Mahalla’s 1st Police Station, with his interpreter. Officers are intimidating him to handover the audiorecordings and photos he took earlier of the detainees’ families.

8:57PM: James and his Egyptian translator Muhammad Mar’ie are still in police custody. James says they are subject to intimidation. The police refuses his repeated requests to contact the US embassy in Cairo.. More worryingly, the police told James: “Forget about your translator… He’s a dead man!”

9:15PM: Police tried to arrest another foreign journalist again, a Japanese reporter who showed to interview the detainees’ families, but he managed to escape with the help of the local citizens. In other developments Journalist Amina Khairy, who was arrested yesterday when she tried interviewing the detainees’ families too, will be interrogated at the Tanta Prosecutor’s Office today on charges of “inciting riots” and “obstructing police work”!!

9:50PM: James and Mari’e are still in police custody. James, however, managed to speak to the US embassy in Cairo. The embassy woman who replied, told him: “There isn’t much I can do for you. I don’t know the laws in Egypt. If they [police] want your bag give it to them, or they’ll take it by force.” (Shokran ya Embassy for the advise and help!!!) The pigs are now going thru James’ bag as I’m writing, and having a look at his flash drive that includes the photos he snapped..

10:25PM: James and Mari’e are still in custody. Police is threatening to take Mari’e to the Tanta Prison. I have to leave the house now for my seminar. So I won’t be in front of the computer. Fellow journalists and bloggers, please call up James on +20168734415.. Stay in touch with him and don’t let him feel he’s alone in this. I’m gonna try to post any update I receive, while I’m away from the computer screen, on twitter.

9AM: I’ve been updating my twitter whenever I spoke with or SMSed James.. It’s Friday morning now in Mahalla… James has started a hunger strike demanding his release together with Mari’e… They were taken earlier to the Prosecutor’s Office for interrogation after police, according to Mari’e, charged them with “attempting to overthrow the govt.. and inciting riots”!!! The prosecutor ordered their release sometime after 2am, only to be kidnapped again by Mubarak’s pigs as they were leaving the Prosecutor’s building at 2:30am.. The two are now illegally detained in Mahalla’s 1st Police Station. James has already missed his flight back to California, scheduled this early morning.

9:28AM: There’s a lawyer now inside the police station with James and Mari’e. Police has offered again to release James while keeping Muhammad in custody. James refused, and still insists on not leaving the station without his translator.

10:05AM: SMS from James: “Thanks so much for the tireless work and all the support everyone! Got a few hours sleep but will continue hunger strike til both free. Bless you all”… This was followed by another: “Police stations talking about big demo planned today in mhala after noon prayer. Be very careful in mhala may easily get arested”

10:26AM: Gotta say that’s a good one: “Mhala police off. Asked me, i haven’t slept in years. They make us work 24 hours no food. Not enuf pay. What i should do? I said strike.” Our friend Ibrahim el-Hodeiby expresses similar sentiments.

Updates from Mahalla

Posted on By 3arabawy

12:00pm: I’ve just spoken with a labor activist inside Ghazl el-Mahalla compound:

No street clashes and the town is quiet since last night. And also today it is quiet. Production is going on in the factory. But there are tensions in the air, as everybody is waiting to see if the people [the detainees] get released.

Earlier, I spoke with a Socialist activist in Cairo, who said that the (corrupt, regime-backed) General Federation of Trade Unions officials were disseminating rumors that detained Ghazl el-Mahalla workers, who were among those picked up on Sunday and Monday, will be “released soon.” But as I said, these are rumors and workers like Kamal el-Fayoumi, Tarek el-Senoussi, Kareem el-Beheiri and others are still in police custody.

12:40pm: A fantastic video of the Mahalla demonstrators defacing and smashing the dictator Mubarak’s poster in a public square on Monday.

Omar Said uploaded some videos he took in Mahalla on Monday:

9pm: I received news around an hour ago that Kefaya’s George Ishaaq was detained by State Security who raided his house:

George Ishaaq, leading Kefaya activist had just returned home in El Bostan street, Cairo after a long day of preparation for a Kefaya conference to reply to the allegation of the Egyptian government regarding the recent Mahalla demonstrations on the 6th and 7th of April, when state security officers broke into his house searching all his papers and books. Ishaaq was alone. They confiscated papers and books from his library and seemed especially interested in “The Butterfly’s Flutter” by political activist Ahmad Bahaa Shabaan, a book which describes the evolution, nature and future of the Kefaya movement. SSI also took Ishaaq’s mobile phone and prevented him from contacting anybody. After about an hour of search his wife arrived and found them all over her house. For a moment she thought she must be in the wrong place. Irritated by the heavy police presence in her house and their rude manners she asked them to leave the house. They refused. When they tried to take the computer of her son Shady, she refused and insisted that the computer belongs to her son and not his father. They demanded to see her mobile. She denied using a mobile, upon which SSI arrested George Ishaaq and took him to a place, that remains unknown until now.

Journalist Amina Khairy was also arrested earlier in Mahalla as she was trying to interview families of detainees in front of Mahalla’s 1st Police Station. A Japanese journalist and his interpreter were also detained by the pigs when they tried to do the same… Journalists from Ad-Dustour and Al-Jazeera also are facing intimidation…
The Solidarity Committee with the Mahalla Workers has called for a solidarity protest with the detainees and victims of Mubarak’s police brutality who were killed on the 6th and 7th April… The protest is to take place Saturday, 12 April, noon, in front of Cairo’s High Court (Ramses St, Is3af).

11:pm: I couldn’t get thru to my Mahalla contacts in the evening to find out what’s going on there. But according to Socialist activists I spoke with in Cairo, there was no mass scale rioting or clashes that took place today. There are hundreds assembled still in front of Mahalla’s 1st Police Station awaiting to hear news about or see their loved ones who were abducted by Mubarak’s pigs. Journalists who showed up there were subject to intimidation and arrest by the police. The socialists I spoke with echoed the same concerns made by some bloggers about the SS raid of Ishaq’s house being the start of a security crackdown against leftist dissidents or anyone involved in the solidarity movement with Mahalla. Ishaq as far as we know is now at the State Security Prosecutor’s office in el-Tagammu el-Khames, and is denied access to lawyers. In other news, the detained Japanese journalist and his interpreter were released.

1am: Another Kefaya activist detained. Fathi el-Hefnawi’s house was raided by the State Security pigs in the town of Bassioun, Gharbeia Province, around 11:30pm.